National Curriculum

On very rare occasions, having an incompetent rabble on the Treasury benches can be a blessing in disguise.

Those of you with long memories will recall that in the early days of the Rudd Government, the then Education Minister Julia Gillard promised that by 2011, Australia would have a national curriculum for Maths, Science, English and History.

Shortly thereafter it became obvious they weren’t going to make it and so the deadline was pushed back to 2012, then to 2013 and now it seems we’ll be lucky to see it before 2014.

Continue reading "History is not a political science" »

In the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, ALP leader Kevin Rudd staked the middle ground in education by advocating a conservative agenda, embracing a back-to-basics curriculum and a return to traditional subjects.

During her time as Education Minister Julia Gillard also defined herself as an education conservative and described the ALP’s national curriculum as exemplifying a return to academic standards and rigour.

In one speech Gillard described herself as “a passionate believer in the benefits of a rigorous study of traditional disciplines”, and in a second speech she boasted, “What we’re on about is making sure that the absolute basics of knowledge, absolute basics of education are taught right across the country.”

Continue reading "Curriculum is substandard, PC, and ignores Christianity" »

The starting point for a national curriculum has to be that it improves upon each of the eight state-based curricula – some of which have been roundly criticised for many years, in fact for decades by some commentators, as being mediocre, too focussed on skills at the expense of knowledge and failing to generate excellence among Australia’s school students.

One has to ask the question – would we bother to invest in a national curriculum if it doesn’t meet that test?  The answer to that in my opinion is no.  As Education Minister, I would not sign up to a national curriculum that does nothing to improve upon what already exists.  It is not worth doing if it simply embeds under a national umbrella the failures that have been identified over many years at the state and territory level.

Unfortunately, the proposed history discipline is found wanting.  It is not something that I would be prepared to accept as Education Minister.  If elected at the next federal election, it would be my intention to initiate a review of at least the history discipline in the national curriculum to ensure that it achieves the all important goal of filling young minds with the knowledge of why Australia is like it is today.  In other words, how did our society develop and from what well spring did we come?

Continue reading "Teaching history with no regard for civilisation" »

The scene is a Thursday evening in a suburban Australian home in 2018. Dad is on the biodegradable couch watching some vintage Mad Men, remastered in interactive 3D, on a fifth-generation iPad. His 10-year-old daughter throws a digital notebook in his lap. “Daddy, can you help?” she says. “I’ve done the statistical tables but I’m not sure how to justify the relationship between the variables.”

Forget emperor Nasi Goreng building the Great Wall to keep the rabbits out. The draft national curriculum released yesterday will test future parents almost as much as it does kids. Much of its maths and science content is currently the preserve of think-tanks and universities, stuff wholly alien to modern parents and even recent graduates of Australian schools.

For all the arguing about how the curriculum handles history this is primarily a document about the future. Is about building new skills Australia will need in its workforce over coming generations.

Continue reading "An insight to a future of nerdy number-crunchers" »